


To Wash the Rain Away

by cadkitten



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Budding Love, Confessions, Depression, Fix-It, Future Fic, Love Confessions, M/M, Mental Anguish, Muteness, Reunions, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 19:21:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17049101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: He sits and stares out the window and he feels nothing. It's not the blessing he once thought it would be.





	To Wash the Rain Away

**Author's Note:**

> Fuck that Epilogue, man... just fuck it right to hell. The reduction of so many characters right there. It makes my stomach churn. Screw it. Imma fix it.  
> So we're clear... we're letting the Epilogue stand and then we're _fixing it_. The future is a vast place and I'm here to say it holds hope after it holds pain. (aka as per my usual MO I've made things worse before fixing them.)  
> Beta: kate1zena  
> Song[s]: Can You Hold Me (Ft. Britt Nicole) by NF

It's raining again and the rain always makes him think. Ever since Keith returned to Earth, he tries not to think. He tries not to think about what could have been, what _was_. Mostly, he tries not to think about how he feels... like he was returned to the wrong reality. The rain keeps coming down and Keith keeps pretending he's not thinking.

Until he can't anymore.

He closes his eyes and turns away from the window, leaning against the wall beside it and slowly sliding down it. He draws his knees up and presses his face against them and pretends he's not wallowing in his losses for what feels like the millionth time.

It's been five years since he last saw any of them. His heart feels shredded and empty; his soul feels like he left it back on the frayed edges of Honerva's mind. Kosmo's wet nose nudges against his arm and Keith shifts, looping his arm around his neck and drawing him in close, turning to bury his face in his fur instead. It's a small comfort, but at least it _is_ one. It's more than Lance has.

The thought hits him like a ton of bricks and he chokes on the sobs that try to wrench themselves free. It takes everything he has to not to cry. What comes out instead is dry and soundless, a wailing scream that never births itself into the world. It sounds like he feels. _A silent death_.

Since he's came back, he hasn't talked unless it's absolutely necessary. He hasn't cried unless it's in his sleep. He hasn't slept unless he takes his prescription. 

His breath hitches and his body shakes with the sobs that don't fully exist. His lungs hurt with the force of screams that no one hears. His mind is not quite what it used to be and he knows it.

The rain makes him feel things he doesn't want to and he hates it.

If he hates it so much, he has to wonder why he moved _here_ : to the place of perpetual precipitation. He wonders if this is how he's chosen to torture himself for letting go so easily.

After all, this is all his fault, isn't it? 

\-----

It's a new morning, another day that looks like rain, another day spent in the perpetual fog that hangs over his life. He gets up, gets breakfast from the little diner on the corner, goes home and answers a handful of emails asking for his expertise on a mission he walked away from when his mind cracked too far to let him continue, and then he sits and stares at the wall.

He knows it's not healthy, knows this is how he will drive himself to his own end. Inherently, he understands this is depression, but he also wonders if he cares anymore. There was a point where he did, when he tried the things his doctors suggested, when he laid in bed for hours trying to sleep even when he couldn't. There was a time when he had a reason to care.

This isn't _that_ time and this isn't a life that's _worth living_. He's not strong enough to take matters into his own hands, knows that way isn't for people like him. He eats and he gives it all the minimum effort... and he wastes away on the inside. He hopes one day he wakes up from a meager two hours of sleep and no longer cares what his future holds and that the past won't hold his pain the way it does now. He also hopes one day reality cracks and things go back to the way they were before.

He draws his knees up in his chair, closes his eyes and he doesn't cry. 

\-----

It's been months since he said a word. He wonders if his voice still works. He thinks about saying something to find out and then he wonders who on earth he'd say it to. The people at the diner don't try to talk to him anymore, they just bring his breakfast and smile at him. The girl at the grocery only flicks her eyes up at him, nods, and rings him out. The building manager doesn't visit and his neighbors gave up trying to talk to him long before that. Kosmo responds to his gestures and his emotions. No one calls anymore. 

Keith feels like he's dead and has simply forgotten to stop existing. He wonders when the pain in his heart will fade with the rest of it. He wonders when he let himself get so tied up in one person that his entire life isn't worth living without him.

This time when he lays his cheek on Kosmo's fur, the tears come. This time he listens to his own rasping breath as he shakes and sobs and feels like he's falling into an abyss. He cries until he's a shell, until everything inside is outside. He cries until his soul is raw and bloody and his throat feels like he's swallowed glass. 

He lies on the floor and stares at the ceiling until he feels like he's going to drown in his own tears and strangle on his own phlegm, dying in his own self-loathing rotten world where he wasn't strong enough to say what he meant. 

He has no one to blame but himself. He let them all walk away. He let Allura die. He let Lance leave. He let Hunk and Pidge fade away. He let his mother go on some seven year mission that took away his last staple to reality. Most of all, he let Shiro walk right into another man's arms because he couldn't figure himself out fast enough to do anything about it. 

He falls asleep curled up on his rug, his body aching and his mind a mess. He wonders if this new torture is self-created or a product of this reality. He isn't sure it matters.

\-----

Keith is empty. The man that stares at him in the mirror is a Keith-shaped husk. He looks like Keith, breathes like Keith, even the way he clenches his jaw is like Keith, but he is not Keith.

Keith has left the building. Keith has been locked away inside this man's mind to never deal with this reality again. 

His hands don't shake and his eyes aren't sad. His eyes are vacant and if he looks close enough he can see the little desk sign that says 'No one's in' hanging just beyond the mirrored depths. His heart doesn't hurt because it feels nothing at all. His soul isn't bruised and battered because he's given up on remembering it exists. 

When Kosmo follows him, it's with weary steps and an edge to it that hasn't ever been there before. 

Kosmo knows Keith's not home anymore. He follows the shell because at least it's something of what he once knew.

Keith doesn't speak at breakfast, he doesn't speak when his mail arrives, and he certainly doesn't speak when the rain comes outside.

He sits and stares out the window and he feels nothing at all. It's not the blessing he once thought it would be.

\-----

It's three weeks into the nothingness when Kosmo disappears. Keith thinks he should be upset that his last ally has left him. He also thinks he should have been more grateful that he stayed as long as he did.

He doesn't cry, though the sky does it for him. He doesn't feel emptier because there was nothing left inside to rip apart. He just stares at the space where Kosmo was and wonders if he's left him or if he's been voided from this existence, too.

He thinks he sees things sometimes. Flashes of another life, another world buried beneath this one. He blinks and they're gone. Time has told him it's probably due to having been present as all of those realities ceased to exist. Logic tells him he's gone crazy. He feels no particular way about any of it.

He opens his email and no one has asked him for anything. He reads the three advertisements just for something to do. His fingers walk him through shopping for clothing he doesn't ever complete the transaction on, lead him through train tickets and rental cars and hotels he doesn't intend to purchase. It grows dark outside and still the rain comes down.

Still, he doesn't exist.

\-----

The bed feels warm beside him, but no one's there. The apartment smells of Kosmo, but there's no evidence he's been here. Keith squints at the clock and it's only been three hours since he climbed in bed. He tries and fails to go back to sleep.

He showers only because he smells and his greasy hair is stuck to his forehead. He pulls the last clean pair of pants from his drawer and tugs on a promotional t-shirt without even glancing at it. He can't find his shoes in the sea that is his room, so he doesn't go to breakfast. He sits in front of his computer and he doesn't turn it on. No one has emailed him in days. 

His hands tremble in his lap and he pretends he's not crying as the tears track silently down his cheeks. 

This isn't the life he ever wanted to live. This isn't his reality.

He wonders if he wishes it hard enough if he could change it. If he could go back and do it all over again and fix it all. He hopes that somewhere out there, there's a version of himself that can be who he once was. A version that spoke up and told everyone how very much he needed them.

He realizes now it wasn't just the loss of Shiro that tore him apart. It was the systematic loss of everyone he'd ever called family. His mother was the final straw. 

He gets up only to lie down on the floor where he's tossed two of the couch's pillows. He draws them in and he pretends they're Kosmo. 

He drove away the last being that mattered to him. 

He wonders how long it'll be until he drives himself away from this world.

\-----

The clock shows 3:33am... and then it doesn't. He blinks at it and wonders were the time went. 5:27am flashes back at him. Another blink and 9am and he feels frozen in place, like time doesn't exist properly anymore either. If this is madness, he's not sure he ever expected it to be like this. 

It takes more effort than he wants to admit to count the seconds and realize he's not losing time, he's losing _consciousness_. It's been four days since he slept, so he supposes it makes sense. He silently prays the next one leaves him to its clutches and he lets it take him under.

\-----

This time he feels the bed dip, understands the weight as it moves across the mattress is the same as Kosmo's used to be. He groans and it takes everything he has left to open his eyelids when a wet nose nuzzles against his arm. He struggles to think and he wonders if this is some sort of cruel joke. 

He finally fell asleep and he remembers his last conscious thought being that this was it: the end of the line. He remembers hoping it would be and opening himself to the truth of it. Now he's awake, feels like he's been through Hell, like Death itself has touched him and walked away in disgust. 

His hand fists in Kosmo's fur and he gasps for air when he finds himself in the tub, Kosmo looming over him, nosing at him until he reaches back to turn it on. It's cold and horrible at first and then it's warm and Keith wants to die there in the warmth instead of in his cold sheets and his nothingness. 

Kosmo pops away and leaves Keith be for a few minutes before reappearing to nose at him and knock the bottles of shampoo and body wash down on him only to leave once more when Keith fumbles one of them open. 

He's not sure what this is and he's not sure if he's grateful or pissed off.

It takes ages to get himself washed and Kosmo checks on him five more times before he's done. They pop back into the bedroom and Keith sits on the edge of his bed, wondering where Kosmo found a clean towel at and where half his laundry piles have gone. It's almost more effort than it's worth to get himself dried off and it _is_ more than he has to stand to get dressed, though Kosmo snarls when he stops trying to struggle into the clothing Keith is pretty sure he's never owned before. 

The wind gets sucked out of him and then he's sitting in the diner on the corner and he's dizzy and grasping at the table trying to figure out if it's okay that he and what amounts to a space dog just ended up popping into existence in a diner in the inner city. No one seems to notice except the waitress who just puts water on the table and tells him she'll get the usual for him.

It's effort to drink the water and it's even more effort to eat any of the toast or egg when it arrives. He tries to remember how long it's been since he ate. He tries to remember what the date is. He tries to remember anything that used to sustain him and it makes him ache when he can't even envision Shiro's face anymore.

It takes him an hour to eat and longer than that to walk home, clutching Kosmo for balance. 

He wonders what this is. He sort of wonders if it's Hell.

\-----

Days turn to weeks and despite Keith's utter lack of give-a-shit, Kosmo has forced him back into some amount of normalcy. He's done his laundry and he showers every day again. He eats and he hurts and he cries when the rain falls. He curls up with Kosmo on the floor and he thanks everything in the world that he got one member of his family back.

He wonders why Kosmo left at all.

\-----

He watches Kosmo come and go, popping in and then back out, in and then out. He blinks at the spectacle until he's suddenly involved in it. One moment he's in his kitchen accomplishing something of a morning on his own, coffee abandoned on the countertop, laptop booting on the island, and then he's... not.

Instead he's in someone else's house, bare feet sinking into plush carpet, and Kosmo just sits in front of him, placid and utterly calm about this development. 

"Keith?"

He wasn't aware he had been moving at all, but the voice freezes him in place. It brings emotion welling up in his throat and everything in him rips at the barely held seams. He wants to run away and he wants to scream and he wants to throw himself toward the voice and hope for the best and he wants to confess everything and yet... he doesn't. He takes in little gasps of air and marvels at the array of emotions he's hit with. He aches with them all and he can't breathe and he can't turn around and he can't – 

A strong hand settles on his shoulder and then he's staring up into Shiro's face and he's only dimly aware of the tears cascading down his cheeks. He can breathe, but he isn't sure that's a blessing because now he can smell everything that is Shiro. He gasps for air and he tries to say something – _anything_ – and he can't. Breath hisses out in a comedy of what speech should be and he reaches out without thinking, fists his hands in Shiro's shirt and he prays to anything that can hear him that this is real.

He hears the quiet whisper of, " _Oh, God_ ," and then he's in Shiro's arms, so carefully enfolded within them, and he clings to him and shakes because he can't do anything more than that. He holds on because it's all he can do.

If this is a dream he hopes he never wakes up.

\-----

He does wake up, but not to finding it was all dream. Instead, he wakes up in a warm bed piled with covers and pillows and the crackle of a fireplace in the next room. He's awash in a sea of Shiro's scent and everything in this room screams that Shiro bought it or touched it or made it. The only photo in the room is of them. All of them. Allura and Lance are a little too close, Pidge and Hunk are making faces, Allura's mice are hanging off Kosmo, and Shiro has his arm thrown around Keith's shoulders like it's nothing. Keith knows who was behind the camera. 

He closes his eyes and he wishes that had been his reality. He wishes it was the one he went back to when it was all over. He knows it isn't.

He dredges himself out of bed despite knowing that means this will be over all the sooner for it. He shuffles through the darkened house and stops in front of the fireplace, stares around at the artwork and the lack of photos that aren't of the team. He notices a _lack_ and he finds himself stuck on it. What sort of couple doesn't keep photos of themselves around?

He worries on it until he feels Shiro's presence beside him, the hand on his shoulder, and then he warmth of his embrace again. He wishes he could talk again. Instead he closes his eyes and burrows against Shiro's shoulder. Just for now. Just this once. 

His heart blossoms in his chest and he feels alive for the first time in years. He doesn’t feel _whole_ , but he feels less empty.

He hears rain on the roof and he cries, but this time he thinks maybe it's relief.

\-----

Breakfast is a messy affair. Shiro does all the cooking and while it's only pancakes from a box mix and whipped cream and fresh strawberries, it looks like something exploded in the kitchen. Shiro has a fine dusting of flour across his nose and it's... well, it's _cute_. 

Keith has to look away, to remind himself Shiro isn't his. His heart aches as he eats the fluffiest pancakes he's ever had and he tries not to dwell on it.

After breakfast, Shiro pushes a tablet in front of him and lightly taps it with one nail. "It'll speak for you... if you want to talk." He sounds hesitant, unsure of himself.

Keith takes it because he could never disappoint Shiro. Not then, not now.

They move to the living room and Keith sits on the floor, Kosmo curled at his side. Shiro sits on the couch, both legs crossed and his hands under his thighs. 

"I thought you were off planet still... when did you come back?"

Keith hesitates and then types: _A while ago. A long while ago._ An automated voice reads his reply out and Keith finds he doesn’t mind this so much.

"I wish I'd known. I would have visited. Where did you end up at?"

Keith hesitates. He isn't sure he wants Shiro to know, if he can stand seeing him once a year and only then or if it was better trying to die alone. Finally, he answers with what amounts to the bitter truth. _In Hell._

The voice reads it out and Keith thinks he can feel Shiro breaking somewhere behind him. He types _Alone_ and he swallows down the broken sound that wants out.

Fabric shifts behind him and then Shiro's foot presses to his shoulder, solid and comforting. "You're not alone now. Kosmo found me for you."

Keith types a name into the tablet and then erases it before it can speak for him. He bows his head and fights his emotions, vows to himself he won't ask anything more than this of Shiro. He can do this. He can find a long distance friend. Someone to type emails to, to text with if he gets his phone back. He can hold all his unresolved feelings in check and never say them.

His fingers ache as he types out _He did_ instead and let it be his voice.

They're quiet for a long while. It should be uncomfortable, but it isn't. Keith leans further into Shiro's foot, wishes he could absorb everything he wants from this touch alone. He closes his eyes and he dozes because his body knows this is his only chance to remember what sleep is. He wakes when a blanket gets draped around his shoulders and blinks blearily up at Shiro. He aches to reach for him, to draw him in and –

He cuts off the thought process with a ferocity he can feel all the way to his fingertips. He reaches for the tablet and types _I'm sorry to fall asleep._

Shiro just smiles softly at him. "You seem like you need it. It's okay. I'll still be here when you wake up."

Keith almost doubts it but he closes his eyes anyway.

\-----

When he wakes, Shiro's still there, asleep on the couch behind him, his soft snoring filling the space and warming Keith's heart. He shifts to lean his head on the couch and watch him, the silence keeping him separate enough to not let his heart ache at a sight he's sure he won't be seeing again after this night. He watches him, cherishing the moment, and he files away Shiro's face in his memory again.

His eyes trace the lines of age that span out from the laughter lines that crinkle his eyes. He sees the other ways that the years have altered him and he amends what little was left of the image in his mind. 

His eyes tear up and he buries his face in the couch and silently, he cries for the loss he knows is coming. He cries for having been given a glimpse of Heaven and knowing he has only Hell waiting for him back home. He questions if he can subsist on memories and occasional emails and he knows he'll do his best. He just doesn't know if he'll succeed.

He wipes his cheeks and he whispers for Kosmo. When he doesn't come, he understands this is how Kosmo has decided to fix things; he's crash-landed Keith into Shiro's life and he wonders once again where the other man in Shiro's life is. 

He was invited to the wedding. He feels like he should remember the invitation clear as the day as it stopped his heart in his chest; yet it's but a dull ache in his memory, torn and withered with time, broken apart until all he can see is Shiro's name and the cream colored parchment paper. He knows he knew the guy Shiro chose to spend his life with at some point in his life, feels like he should know better than he does, and he knows this, too, is a symptom of the larger issue. 

A symptom of loss and his inability to deal with it.

He sits and he stares into the embers of the fire and he listens for the sound of rain that doesn't come. He hears the cars passing by outside and he watches the trace of their lights as they go by. He hears the neighbors come and go and he listens to Shiro's breathing, and he thinks if this guy comes home and sees this, he will both find out who it was again and discover how it feels to be accused of all the things he's always wanted to do and never has.

In a way, he longs to hear the words on someone else's tongue. Thinks maybe he could make it seem more like reality if he does. 

He closes his eyes and he thinks about the fight until he hears Shiro shift behind him and he picks up his tablet and types out: _Where is he?_ if only because he can't stand it anymore.

Shiro's breath is whisper quiet, even in the sigh that births from his lungs. The couch shifts and when Keith turns his head, Shiro's propped up on one arm, studying him with eyes that seem to know too much and nothing all at once. Keith swallows as he waits and Shiro finally gestures toward the window by way of explanation. "Out there somewhere. I haven't talked to him in probably two years. Things... I guess they weren't what we thought they were." He shrugs it off and Keith can see it's an old hurt. It isn't raw and open, but it's still there, tucked beneath layers of logic and deduction. Shiro has dealt with this in a way Keith has never dealt with his own losses.

He stares down at his tablet and finally he forces his fingers to type out: _I'm sorry._ He's not. He can't be. But he wishes what he says were true if only so he could try to offer some form of comfort.

Shiro slides onto his back and Keith glances back to watch, studies the way he exhales and then shakes his head ever so slightly. "Nothing to be sorry about. It's life and it worked its course. He's in the past."

Keith swallows again, the words echoing in his mind. He longs to say everything he feels and he wishes he were a braver man than he is. He wishes he had his shit together and he wishes he weren't falling apart. He wishes he were someone Shiro could love.

He puts the tablet down because he doesn’t know what else to say and he rests his head back on the couch and watches the flicker of lights go by on the ceiling. He wishes he'd said something so many years ago.

He wonders if it would have made a difference.

\-----

He sleeps in Shiro's bed again after they eat dinner and he wakes sometime after three in the morning to find Shiro sleeping on the couch. He curls up in the floor beside the couch and pulls the blanket he brought with him around himself. He watches and he catalogues and he wishes like hell he were better than this. Better than to watch another man sleep because he can't find a way to get enough to sustain him once he has to leave. Better than to hope Kosmo strands him here and Shiro never makes him leave.

He slides his hand across the couch and presses his pinky finger to Shiro's and lays his head on the cushions and drifts back off to sleep. He dreams that they're together, in love and that he'd never felt the horrible sting of loneliness. He dreams of a better reality and when he kisses Shiro, it feels like it could be real for the first time in more years than he cares to admit.

\-----

He wakes to a hand pressed warm over his own, to a thumb stroking over his skin and he feels warm and buzzed and like he's earned everything in the world just to get this touch. His heart aches and he mouths the words he cannot say. He talks silently until his vocal chords make a strangled sort of sound and Shiro's hand is on his cheek and Keith can't breathe. He trembles and he longs and he does everything he can not to reach for him.

When he fails and his fingertips ghost over Shiro's cheek, his breath clots in his throat and Shiro leans into the touch and it's the kiss to his palm that truly does him in. It's warm and tender and he feels like there's nothing in the world that could ever replace this feeling. He doesn't hesitate, he doesn't back down. He finds strength in whatever this is and he makes his own moment where he failed so many times before. 

He draws himself up on his knees and slides his hand behind Shiro's neck to draw him in. For one fleeting moment, he hovers just beyond the inevitable. He gives him time to run, time to tell him he doesn't want this, and he nearly sobs when Shiro completes the kiss. Warm lips press against his own and his heart soars like a bird with newfound wings. He _lives_ in a way he hasn't in so many years, and this time when he cries, he _knows_ it's with relief. 

\-----

Keith sits across the table from Shiro, pushing spaghetti around his plate and marveling at how hope feels curled warm and comforting in his belly. He wishes he could speak again and he longs for saying what he feels, but he's still too scared to do it. This is all so fragile and new and he wonders when the dream will break and he'll be alone on his apartment floor.

He puts down his fork and picks up his tablet and he types: _Am I dreaming again?_ It doesn't feel like his dreams, but he has to be certain. His dreams always tell him the truth when he asks and then he wakes.

Shiro reaches across the table and takes his hand. His palm is warm and secure and Keith closes his eyes and he waits.

"This is reality."

Keith opens his eyes and looks up at him, watches the flutter of pain there and he wonders if he should have asked at all. He watches it burn to flame and he has to look away again.

"Keith..." his name so gentle he has to look up, has to see the care and the pain in Shiro's gaze. "Tell me how long." Keith cocks his head, the question of what in his motions alone. Shiro shakes his head, grips his hand tighter. "How long you've felt this way."

He types without thinking, sits with his heart in his throat as he listens to it read his words out loud. _Since I can remember._

"Why didn't you ever let me know?"

This he types, too, even against better judgement. _Fear holds us all back. I'd rather have had you as a friend than as nothing at all._

He feels like he can _hear_ Shiro break. He aches with the look he gives him and he isn't the least bit surprised when Shiro comes around the table to kneel in front of him and frame his face between his gentle hands. Keith leans into it, hoods his eyes, and wishes he could have this forever. 

"I loved you first."

It’s the kind of confession that would piss off whoever came second. It's also the kind of confession that makes Keith tingle with the truth of it. He closes his eyes and he sighs – breathy and relieved. He feels the ghost of the kiss before he feels the fullness of it. His toes curl in the carpet and he reaches to dig his hands into Shiro's hair and he wills himself to say only three words. The only three that matter in the entire world right now.

He breaks the kiss but he doesn't move away. He breathes Shiro's air and he clings to him to keep him there and he strains everything in his throat and his mind and _world_ to use his voice for the first time in far too long. It's scratchy and aches in a way he supposes talking shouldn't, but he accomplishes the only thing that matters.

"Be with me."

He feels Shiro's hitch in breath, feels the world culminate into something that matters, and it's the whisper of, "Always," across his lips that gives him life.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god, I have to tell you... I got to the admission part and holy shit, my playlist started playing I Found by Amber Run and god, I don't know how to deal with this. I want to cry.


End file.
